Liberalism is an English tradition

What do we mean by "liberal" here

We live in a world of liberal democracies. You want to undo that?

We are all "Liberals" now. Within the confines of a "Liberal" world, we have :conservatives: and "liberals"

Usually when a right winger uses the term "liberal", I'd agree with you in a western context

But in the Indian context, it is more problematic. Because Hindu-Right has never fully embraced Liberal democracy intellectually

So when "liberal" is used, I don't know which one is it

I'd sort of agree on that for much of H-Right's history...

Am sure Vajapayee, Advani, DDU, Shyama Mukherjee were all Pro-liberal democracy

(Contd..)

Last 5-10 years or so, I see new strands on the internet...

A lot of talk of Dharmika polity as an alternative to "liberal democracy"

I am not against it, because I don't understand what it is..

Not fully

So things like - 

"Free and fair elections", "one person one vote", "equal treatment before law"

Are these consistent with Dharmika principles?

I don't think it can be easily reconciled...that's where it gets problematic

Fair...

But notice one thing - how often "Dharma" is invoked in political contexts in our times

I am rather old fashioned - back in 50s/60s, when ppl used Dharma in ordinary discourse, they largely meant "religion"

E.g. Woh Dharmic kism ke aadmi hai (he is a religious sort)

That's how I always related to the term Dharma...

"Dharmic" meant "being religious"

That's how average Indians use it.

But on twitter it is used differently. To invoke a world view that hopes to rival liberal democracy

And if H-Right's end-game is to undo liberal democracy, sever ties with all those "foreign" political ideas, and build an indigenous political framework based on Kautilya, Manu and others, I am not against that

Except that I dont have a clue how that framework will look and feel

@shrikanth_krish

What exactly is liberal about liberal democracy, due process, votes, equality before law, predate liberalism

I understand that, due process etc predate Hobbes and Locke

But rule by consent is also a traditionalist anglo saxon view predating liberalism

Conventionally that is not regarded as liberalism which starts with Hobbes and Locke with individual as frame of reference

https://twitter.com/doubtinggaurav/status/1311176474636898304?s=19

Nope...

We are talking of a different type of liberalism here...

"L"iberalism not progressive politics.

It has its genesis with Machiavelli and Hobbes, with the 1688 revolution being an early milestone

Am talking of the intellectual justification of "rule by consent" as opposed to divine right monarchy

Liberalism's origins are in ancient Anglo Saxon kingdoms..

I don't see Liberalism as a radical innovation. But as an English tradition

Intellectually the formulation happens with Hobbes and Locke

But roots lie much before. Otherwise you won't see Magna Carta being celebrated as much

@shrikanth_krish

Become free from the legal morality imposed by the British

SN Balgangadhara should be compulsory reading for Indian lawyers and judges. Unless and until they know how we are different from the ones they imitate they can never be useful to Indians ! 

https://t.co/wGzeTbEPuZ

@sankrant

https://twitter.com/Rohits_17/status/1307211405247098880?s=19

Ideas like essential practice, atheism, “purpose of ritual”, superstition etc do not work in the Indian context at all. That is why every attempt by the government to “savage natives” creates more social conflict and corrupts our public discourse. Time to look inwards. @PMOIndia

Ex: In India society learns through mimetic learning. Stories are representational and contain a set of propositions. That is why stories play such an important role in the lives of children who grow up listening to these stories. But what function can stories play in learning ?

But then how do we decide which stories are fit for learning and which are not ? How does the instructional authority come about ? Social, political or economic position has never determined instructional authority in India unlike say in the west or the Islamic world.

Stories are exemplars that are units of mimetic learning. Meaning that exemplars create new action. Just like ideas generate new ideas, actions can inspire new actions. This is the function of stories and that is why they are used as a tool of learning in India. This is profound

All exemplars are context bound. S.N.B writes that “the context dependence of an action is what makes it fertile in different contexts” Hence this kind of learning produces more individual actions, inspired actions and as a consequence novel actions that lead to knowledge.

That is why Ramayan, Mahabharat, the stories of Chanakya, Mahavir, Buddha, Adi Shankara, Rajendra Chola, Kharvel, Etc still are popular among people. They are all exemplars of learning and hence generate new action while people use a discriminatory criteria to decide how to act

Truschke recently made contradictory claims about history ! That is because she does not know what history is nor is there a definition of “history” per se ! She furthers the agenda of those who pay her. Classic case of Varna Sankara ! 

https://t.co/zWc5jUhq7A

How to read Indian texts :

https://t.co/e92ekX2v76 (7 part video series of a workshop held in Kuvempu in Karnataka) ! 

Stop reading interpretations. First read the texts in Sanskrit or preferrably in your mother tongue.

Nice thread on the western rule based systems of law vs. the Indian story based systems of justice. Good explanation of the work of SN Balagangadhara, on how and why justice is denied in India.

https://twitter.com/vakibs/status/1307242905900285952?s=19

This is my short essay on the same point. I don’t know when India will ever become free from this legal morality imposed by the British, and adjudicated in the colonial English language.

https://t.co/XHgM3aBDuq

From a computer science and AI perspective, western systems of law and morality are like rule-based AI expert systems, whereas the Indian model of justice is like training a neural network through examples (stories). The second model is context-aware and generalizes better.

Rule based expert systems are completely overturned in AI through learning based systems. It is only a matter of time that they are similarly overturned in the domain of legal code. Stories are far better methods for both communicating and interpreting justice, than legal code.